Site delivers on top wine

Yvonne Lorkin.

Hawke's Bay wine writer Yvonne Lorkin has teamed up with wine marketer Debbie Sutton to create a wine tasting and delivery service she said would turn traditional wine buying "on its head".

The pair have set up "WineFriend", which Ms Lorkin said was built around taking the guesswork and hassle out of buying the right wines for the right palates.

It is the country's first online wine retailer which matches wines to individual customer's taste preferences and then has them delivered.

Ms Lorkin said WineFriend used a simple eight-question taste survey which provided an insight into the customer's thresholds for sweetness, bitterness and intensity of flavour.

"It then creates a profile which enables us to select wines that are tailored to the individual customer's tastes and they are then delivered to their door for around the same price as what they would currently spend at the supermarket."

She said the profiles would also help her include a "wild card" wine in every delivery.

The scheme was geared to give customers the buying power and convenience of getting a wine they knew they would enjoy, she said.

Ms Lorkin's business partner Debbie Sutton said for choice and variety, wine buyers had never had it better.

"And they've never had it worse regarding the possibility of confusion and the pressure to find the perfect wine - it is the age of anxiety for wine."

Ms Lorkin said people would often leave the supermarket with the "same old thing they always get" or they would panic and take a punt on something they knew little about in the taste sense.

"Our taste survey is simply the starting point of the customer relationship."

WineFriend offers three levels of subscriptions - Easy Everyday ($99), Treat Yourself ($149) and Icons and Innovators ($249) on a monthly or two-monthly free delivery basis with each case containing six different bottles of wine.